BELMONT, Calif. — The Dominican University of California women's volleyball team topped Notre Dame de Namur on Saturday in three sets (25-21, 26-24, 32-30) and kept pace in the crowed PacWest standings.
The win completed the season sweep over NDNU (6-17/4-11 PacWest) and guaranteed a winning season for the Penguins (15-7/11-3 PacWest), who are enjoying their most successful season in the DII era under Head Coach
Yami Nolan. The Penguins moved into third place after Hawai'i Pacific (14-8/10-3) was swept at home by second-place California Baptist (16-5/11-2 PacWest). Concordia (21-2/12-2 PacWest) is in first place by half a game.
Dominican trailed 15-14 in set one but went on a four-point run that forced an Argonauts timeout. The Penguins kept pushing and closed the set out on another 4-0 run thanks to a pair of kills from
Aimee Steinwand, a kill from
Madeline Powelson, and an Argonauts attack error. Dominican led 14-6 in set two but 6-1 and 4-0 runs by NDNU evened the set. The Argonauts avoided the first set point but back-to-back
Brittany Latigue kills gave Dominican a 2-0 match lead. NDNU used a 5-0 run to build a 12-7 lead in set three and looked in full control at 20-12. Nolan subbed in
Cat Thomason and it paid instant dividends, as the redshirt sophomore recorded back-to-back kills. The Argonauts inched closer to set point and led 23-17 but Dominican pulled to within 23-22 lead thanks to four NDNU errors. The Penguins fended off set point twice and got kills from Powelson and Steinwand to cap off the marathon set and the sweep.
Four Penguins reached double digit kills, led by 15 from Steinwand.
Kate Even recorded 11 kills while Powelson and Latigue had 10 kills apiece. Five Penguins reached double digit digs, led by 29 from senior libero
Amanda Lee. Steinwand had 15 and Powelson had 14 for double-doubles.
Hannah Smith had a double-double with 49 assists and 14 digs. Freshman
Zoe Burgess also had 10 digs.
Bianca Alvarez led NDNU with 19 kills and had a double-double with 13 digs. Libero Carina Quintero had 26 digs in the loss.
The Penguins will now head to Utah for a key match at fifth-place Dixie State (14-8/10-4 PacWest) on Saturday, Nov. 5. First serve is slated for noon (11 a.m. Pacific).
